Tonight's guest review is from Gary at the
terrific retailer Toyboxer.com.
Check out the site when you get a chance - now on to the review!

These figures are from the Konami video game
Metal Gear Solid from left to right Solid Snake, Meryl Silverburgh, Liquid
Snake, and Sniper Wolf. These were made by Yamato Toys and distributed by
Toycom for Konami.

I don't believe these figures have been reviewed by anyone, in fact I think
they went unnoticed because I don't recall seeing them sold anywhere. I
remember seeing early prototypes at http://www.figures.com
and a friend of mine said he found Snake and Meryl at Electronic Boutique in
the mall a few months ago. I happened to get mine from a person selling them
on eBay. Instead of buying them I did a trade for the whole set and was
quite pleased with my deal.

Packaging - ***
Great artwork from the video game is used as well as giving a brief bio
about the figure on the back of the box. The front, which isn't
pictured because it isn't special, gives you a full view of the figure in
the box. Its fairly collector friendly because you can put everything
back in the box for storage, don't know why you would want to
do that though. But forget ever using the ties that keep it locked up
because they must be cut off to get the figure out. Be careful, I stabbed my
knuckle with a knife trying to get them out because they are really tight.

Sculpting - ***1/2
The head sculpts are really fantastic, I especially like Meryl, Sniper Wolf
and Solid Snake the best. The girls really do remind me of the artwork used
and the characters from the game. They have an animated look to them,
without the goofy eyes that japanese animated characters tend to have. One
thing that's different from most of my 12" figure head sculpts in my
collection is that the hair on these figures is not molded with the head, it
seems to have been attached. Possibly Solid Snake is the only one not like
that. But its goes unnoticed and I kind of like it. I think maybe it looks a
little better doing it that way. I have done all my head sculpt hair customs
the same way.

It says on the box that the creator of the game had direct supervision of
these so they are rendered down to the smallest detail.

Paint - ***1/2
The paint ops are perfect here lips, eyes and hair all nicely done. It
doesn't get a perfect rating because I think the green and yellow hair of
Sniper Wolf will need to be repainted to suite my tastes. I think its too
green and maybe shouldn't have green in it in the first place? I really like
Meryl's red hair though, nicely done.

Articulation - ***
I'm not really sure if they deserve a 3 or 2 1/2 star rating here. In most
cases I think the higher because the figures are really poseable and fully
articulated. Snake is probably the only one that can't be posed as much as
the others. But it's only because his vest hampers his arms a bit. I did not
undress them because putting them back together wasn't something I wanted to
do. I don't really care if a figure has 18 or 24 points of articulation. As
long as you can do a fair amount of poses and the figure can stand on its
own I'm pretty happy. I think these have joints similar to a Volks type body
though, but I'm not sure. They are much heavier than a Dragon Models body if
that helps.

I found these to be as poseable as most BBI or Sideshow type figures. The
one negative thing I found was the joints seemed loose but they
weren't floppy, thank god. Much better than the 12" Final Fantasy
figures that came out last year.

Outfit - ***1/2Overall I was very happy with the outfits of all 4 figures. Remembering
back from the video game, all four seem to be dressed pretty authentic.
Solid Snakes vest is really nice, movement limiting for the arms but still
really nice looking. Also Solid Snake got the cloth holster with a pouch for
his silencer, a pouch for his laser targeting unit, and the room for the HK
as well. Everyone else had holsters made from soft form fitting plastic,
nice stuff not cheap looking.

I believe Meryl had a olive drab shirt at one point in the game but also I
think later she was sporting the black shirt with the orange vest.
Everything is well done so I can't say anything bad about them.

Accessories - **1/2
Here is where they score the worse marks and its not from the amount or the
quality of accessories. Both the amount per figure and the quality are very
nice. They score bad because the weapons seem to be so far out of scale its
almost funny. Every weapon minus Meryl's knife seem too big
for the figures. Sniper Wolf's PSG 1 rifle is the worst in scale, I'm no
expert on HK military weapons but that rifle seems way too big for her
or either one of the guys as well. Wish I could give you some comparison
shots but I don't have any of these weapons from any other manufacturer to
compare with. Meryl's Desert Eagle is huge, bigger than the one that comes
with the CY Girls, if you have any of those to look at.

As for detail everything is detailed but not as detailed as say Dragon but
more like 21st Century Toys detail. 3 of the four figures all come with a FA
MAS battle rifle. That was the primary rifle in the game along with HK
products like Mark 23's, USP's, and Sniper's PSG 1. All are nice looking but
just too big.

Value - ***1/2
I found them worth the trade I was able to make. I think they are worth $20
to $25 each I got mine for about $18 each in the trade. Not sure how
much they cost online or in the store because I never saw them anywhere. But
I have seen a few go on ebay for around $15 to $25 each. Yamato did as good
as or better than what Dragon may have done with them. Dragon would have
shined when it came to the accessories though but they would had been much
more expensive.

Overall - ***The loose joints and the oversized weapons bring the rating down one
star but overall I'm really pleased with the figures and I think Yamato and
Konami did a great job designing these figures. I wouldn't be upset to see
Yamato do the 12" figures from the second game Metal Gear: "Sons
of Liberty". I hope we don't have to wait as long as this release. But
I can't fault them there because I never knew they were even doing these
figures till 2 months before they came out.

Where to Buy: Sorry can't help you here. Only thing you can
do is keep checking ebayhttp://www.ebay.com or search video game
stores like Electronic Boutique or places like Suncoast in your local mall
or online shops like mine. I don't have any to sell you, but I wish I did.
Good luck!!